The Steve Jobs I knew: Reflections from one of the state's original Apple dealers

Press photo | Emily ZoladzWilliam Smith, president of CompuCraft in Grand Rapids, writes about the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

The Press asked William Smith, owner of CompuCraft, one of the state's oldest Apple dealers, to reflect on Wednesday's death of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Over the years Smith had many meetings with Jobs and rode Apple's roller-coaster business from boom to bust and back through to its remarkable rebirth.

My first experience with Apple was in 1984 while I was working on my master’s degree at Grand Valley State University. I bought the original Macintosh to replace my old typewriter. So began my passion for Apple, and my admiration of Steve Jobs, who led the team that designed this incredible new tool. Soon after buying that machine I began selling Macs as a side business.

In the early days, Steve Jobs was the marketing wizard and we would meet at large venues in major cities to see what new products Apple would release. The meetings were secret and you would need special clearance credentials to be allowed in.

Steve would passionately present new technology we hadn’t seen before, always ending with: “But, there’s one more thing,” saving the biggest surprises for last. Afterward Steve would take the time to shake all of our hands and thank us for helping “change the world”.

He was serious about that and could really motivate you to think.

By 1985 Steve was forced out of Apple and we were left wondering what would become of our business. But we forged ahead, opening CompuCraft as an officially licensed Apple dealership in 1987.

The decade after Steve was fired was full of ups and downs and uninspired leadership. Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, taking over the helm of a listless, money-bleeding ship.

But by 1998, hot on the heels of the debut of a little blue computer called iMac, Jobs announced Apple's first profit in many years. We had a party to celebrate the increasingly bright future he was helping to create.

At the next MacWorld Expo Jobs personally congratulated the resellers that made it possible. He didn’t take the credit. He gave the credit to us. That was very telling about his personality.

In the years that followed, Apple began the turnaround of the century, and we rode the wave. I was at many meetings with Steve Jobs and in every meeting I was stunned at the new innovations I was lucky enough to see first hand.

He was more of a marketing visionary than an innovative engineer. Who would have thought the iPod would become such a phenomenon or that a MacBook laptop could be so powerful and good looking? Who else could have made the iPhone so ‘smart’ or redefine simplicity with the iPad?

Steve saw it and I didn’t. But we benefited greatly from his “insanely great’ products. He would accept nothing less than perfection in operation and style.

It speaks volumes that I heard of Steve’s passing on my iPhone. I read about it on my iPad. I’m writing about it on my Mac laptop.

So thank you, Steve.

Thank you for inspiring me as a young college student. Thank you for creating my career and business. Thank you for helping me to work with some of the best, most passionate people in the world.

What you did to help people like me find their place in the world will go on forever; but it won’t be the same without you.